The present invention generally relates to fault detection and quality monitoring of multiple, independently grounded, power and data transmission circuits.
In vehicles such as aircraft or spacecraft, multiple independent and redundant bus systems may be employed to transfer power between various electrical power sources and electrical loads. Some of these same bus systems may also be employed to transmit data between various locations in the vehicle. In some instances, these multiple buses may not have a common ground. For instance, a bus that may receive power from a battery may be grounded separately from a bus that may receive power from a generator. This separate grounding may be useful to avoid undesirable effects of noise or leakage-to-ground conditions in the generator-driven bus from adversely effecting the battery-driven bus.
In a vehicle with numerous independent and redundant buses there may be a continuing need to determine the status and quality of power and data transmission on each bus. Typically, for each independent bus, a dedicated status and quality measuring device may be required. Multiple, dedicated, status and quality measuring devices may contribute to increased cost, weight and space consumption in an aerospace vehicle.
As can be seen, there is a need for a single system that may determine status and quality of multiple, independently grounded, buses in a vehicle without being dedicated to any one of the buses.